Quoted From killman:
This is an Ecotec engine so it has a cartridge oil filter, not a spin on canister filter. There is no such thing as a high performance filter for these engines just overpriced hype to bilk you out of more money. Other than the US made filters no one knows who makes the filter but just where they are made. The best filters are the AC Delco at Advance Auto (not from the dealer) made by Hengst USA, with the Purolator US filters next best and Champion Labs US filters below those. Foreign wise best to worst is from Western Europe(very rare), Poland (very nice but hard to find) , Korea (okay), Bulgaria (junk) and China (take a guess).
Note that there have been several different oil filter caps since the Ecotec was introduced. A replacement AC Delco cap is $16 at the dealer ($8 at Rock Auto) and includes the o ring and a new Hengst USA filter (shelf stock filter seems to be the cheapest bid of the week like many auto store filters) as well.
Keep in mind that the oil level will read differently because oil will drain out of the oil filter housing back into the oil pan after a while. Sitting over night the engine should read at Max and hot it will read a notch or two low so do not add oil. Ecotecs rarely use oil so but do not have an oil level warning sensor so do check the levels.
Some synthetic oils will cause noise issues that simply do not occur with other oils. Mobil 1 is bad about this problem on some Ecotecs and will cause noises that point to a weak timing chain tensioner. Changing oils can fix these noise problems.
Excellent post. Also, have you always run synthetic oil? Or did you recently change over? If it was a recent change, I would go back to regular oil, as synthetics on an engine with some miles on it can cause seals to start leaking.